(OT) And, In Conclusion -- Star Wars - The Clone Wars

Before I started writing this review, I put up a Lexan shield, I put
on a Redman suit, and I put on the strongest, bullet-proof steel cup I
could find. Reviewing Star Wars movies always lands me in trouble. I
reviewed Phantom Menace for an apa I was writing for at the time (I
thought it was lame), and got into a feud with the central mailer that
lasted until the group went under. I reviewed Attack Of The Clones
for my old web page (I thought it was weak), and got nailed by
Netizens. In short, if there is ANY review I write that I'm expecting
to inspire backtalk from the troops, it's this one.

Star Wars has always struck me as the strangest movie death spiral I
have ever seen. I don't buy the whole, "You were a kid when you saw
the first Star Wars, so you can't feel the magic like that again,"
that people invariably trot out. I consider the first two, New Hope
and Empire, to be cinematic classics, from the cinema verite
atmosphere of many of the scenes to Lucas' directing knowing just what
to do in a given scene. In NH, Han and Leia's future was spelled out
in the trash compactor scene, when after it is shut down, the camera
cuts to a short but very visible view of Han and Leia hugging each
other warmly. (I'm not as impressed with how Joseph Campbell-ish the
first series was. Considering Campbell helped with the story outline,
of course it's going to be Campbell-ish.) But with Return Of The
Jedi, things went horribly askew. Some great stuff was still there.
The scene where that AT-AT comes out of the forest was amazingly
chilling. The Skiff battle over the Sarlac pit. Luke's final battle
where he was dueling more with temptation than with Vader or the
Emperor. The way a simple change in angle and lighting made Vader's
mask express sorrow, remorse, and anger during the face-off with the
Emperor. But it was drowned by a wave of questionable choices. The
gravitas of the situations was gone, starting with high-ranking Rebel
officers going on a purely personal rescue mission of Han Solo.
Everyone has already picked apart the whole Ewok thing. Lame humor
and cliched plot devices. Yoda suddenly sounding like Super Grover.
Boba Fett died for a burp joke. The list goes on and on.

The subsequent movies, including the remixes (a.k.a. Special
Editions), only reinforced the idea that Lucas was more interested in
showing off visual effects than telling stories. With Clone Wars,
Lucas has abandoned storytelling all together. As executive producer,
he has some say in how things take shape. When it comes to art,
people make what interests them. People learning to cook can't wait
to try their favorite recipes. Fanboys can't wait to draw their
favorite super heroes. Here, Lucas has approved an art style where
only pre-existing models he's created look good, any human element or
fantastic new world gets the short end of the stick.

This is supposedly a pilot for a Star Wars TV series. Whatever. It
takes place after AotC but obviously before RotS. The plot is kind of
a grab bag. At its most basic, the son of Jabba the Hutt has been
kidnapped, and the Jedi are on the case. But the actual storyline
bobs and weaves all over the place, trying to keep you guessing with
twists and turns. Compared to the "Whadyamean, it's not over yet?!?"
expertly utilized by Christopher Nolan in The Dark Knight, the film is
busy but not exactly engaging.

It really is a letdown. I wasn't dazzled by the space fights or Jedi
battles, I was bored silly. They felt more like they were holding up
the movie from going through its plot points (at over two hours long,
a little tightening would have been nice). The living creatures look
ridiculous in the art style. In fact, the whole movie looks like it
was made toys instead of an artistic style. The movie features a lot
of elements of Golden Age sci-fi. The movie doesn't start off with a
crawl but with an Omniscient Narrator bringing us up to speed. When
Anakin contacts "Commander Cody", I actually said aloud, "You have GOT
to be kidding me!" And once again, the Secret Passage That
Conveniently No One Else Knows About is introduced again.

By the way, a quick note about character creation. When the Gungans
in PM showed up, I saw why people said they were insulting to African-
Americans, but I cut Lucas some slack as he wasn't insulting anyone,
he was trying to create an alien race that worked for the movie. When
the Trade Federation ambassadors talked like the announcers on Banzai,
I saw why people said they were insulting to Asians, but I cut Lucas
some slack as he wasn't trying to insult anyone, just make a race that
sounded alien without falling back on the old, "good guys have
American accents, bad guys have British accents" thing. But even the
most forgiving, lenient, or apologetic movie viewer will find their
brains doing a kernel panic the first time they see and hear Zero The
Hutt. And that's all I'm going to say on the subject.

Part way through, I started identifying things that seemed to be
inspired by other media. The Spider Droids made me think of
Octorocs. Covert troopers had me thinking of Halo, which borrows a
lot from Star Wars itself (speaking of series that borrow heavily from
Star Wars, I think I recall a couple of starfighters looking vaguely
like Arwings from StarFox, but don't hold me to that). In fact, the
movie itself feels like a video game demo, complete with characters
explaining the goal for the next level...I mean, the next part of the
plot.

The little things continue to bug me. The droids communicating
aurally instead of electronically. Humor with strange subjects, like
the lead droid telling a literally fallen comrade, "Get back up
here." R2D2 doing his King Of The Rocketmen routine (and there's that
Commander Cody memory set again....). The "clones" having different
hair colors, styles, etc. The banter between Anakin and his trainee
(why exactly did she wait so long to blow the shield generator?).

With a little less running time and a little more freshness to the
script, not to mention going in a different direction instead of
trying to incorporate Star Wars elements, Clone Wars could have been a
perfectly acceptable, maybe even fun sci-fi adventure like Ice
Pirates. Instead, it comes nowhere near the first two movies. Let's
just hope that, when Lucas decides to actually do those other three
movies he denies he ever meant to make (movies making more money at
the box office that Star Wars seem to trigger his filmmaking desires,
and now Dark Knight has joined Titanic as being ahead of Star Wars),
he gets back to what made the movies so engaging -- the characters,
not the visuals. The steak, not the sizzle.

"Pete Holland Jr." <peterg@uti.com> wrote in message
news:929278e6-f0b4-4469-9055-e5ba05497a95@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...

Pete -

Why here at r.a.a.m.? Can't you find other places that are more appropriate?

Why not discuss an anime series, even an old one? Even one that has been
discussed too many times?

Sure, you got the urge to write, but simply putting an "OT" in your header
doesn't really justify bringing up pop culture that has been and is still
being discussed everyone on the planet.

Fight the urge Pete, fight the urge.

Dave Baranyi

(Too tired to attempt to create an on-topic thread.)

> Why here at r.a.a.m.? Can't you find other places that are more appropriate?

Well, I posted here because of the spillover. People here talk about
Star Wars, comic books, and animation in general. This movie hit two
of those points, so I figured it was safe, although I did add the OT
just as a precaution. I didn't think this was that far of a
digression.

"Pete Holland Jr." <peterg@uti.com> wrote in message
news:921ed0aa-234f-4608-a38b-cb795476351f@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com...[color=blue][color=green]
>> Why here at r.a.a.m.? Can't you find other places that are more
>> appropriate?[/color]
>
> Well, I posted here because of the spillover. People here talk about
> Star Wars, comic books, and animation in general. This movie hit two
> of those points, so I figured it was safe, although I did add the OT
> just as a precaution. I didn't think this was that far of a
> digression.[/color]

Pete -

After I posted my remarks I googled your posting history at r.a.a.m., and to
my surprise I found that you almost always post non-anime movie reviews at
r.a.a.m. - certainly much more frequently than you post comments on anime.

Pete - there are tons of places to post non-anime movie reviews. "Spillover"
is an extremely poor excuse to use to post non-anime reviews here on a
regular basis. You don't see me posting comments on my fishing trips on
r.a.a.m. do you? (And yes, I could even make some fishing trip posts "almost
on topic" if I were to refer to the "Tsuribaka" anime when I wrote them.)

So use some self-discipline Pete and post your non-anime movie reviews at
sites that cater to non-anime movie reviews. There are tons of anime movies
that you could review - for example, why not do a "retrospective" of the
"Meitantei Conan" movies, even if you limit yourself to the ones that have
been translated and released in R1?

Dave Baranyi

Pete Holland Jr. wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
>> Why here at r.a.a.m.? Can't you find other places that are more appropriate?[/color]
>
> Well, I posted here because of the spillover. People here talk about
> Star Wars, comic books, and animation in general. This movie hit two
> of those points, so I figured it was safe, although I did add the OT
> just as a precaution. I didn't think this was that far of a
> digression.[/color]

Well I liked the review :) thank for sharing, I wouldn't have caught it
if you had posted it anywhere else. I've read a few movie magazine
reviews that predictability drooled *sigh* but I suspected it was going
to be terrible. There was a trailer for it before Wall-E, which I
finally got to see last night. I actually *cringed* at the dialog. I'll
pretty much consume any movie, but I rarely think I trailer is so bad I
want to hide in my popcorn. It was on par with utterly awful trailer for
High School Musical 3.

Still, Wall-E saved the evening. One of the best movies I've seen in a
long while.

My partner works in a Sci-Fi shop and she's totally sick of Star Wars
now. They have a billion new toys.

--

x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

[url]http://www.northleithmill.com[/url]

-.-

Kammy has a new home: [url]http://www.bitesizedjapan.com[/url]

> Well I liked the review :) thank for sharing, I wouldn't have caught it[color=blue]
> if you had posted it anywhere else. I've read a few movie magazine
> reviews that predictability drooled *sigh* but I suspected it was going
> to be terrible. There was a trailer for it before Wall-E, which I
> finally got to see last night. I actually *cringed* at the dialog. I'll
> pretty much consume any movie, but I rarely think I trailer is so bad I
> want to hide in my popcorn. It was on par with utterly awful trailer for
> High School Musical 3.[/color]

Thank you for the compliment. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

The strange thing is, I've gotten a couple of e-mails from friends who
say I didn't go far enough with the review. Considering the cheap
shots I've taken at Episodes 1 through 3 over the years, they were
expecting far more viciousness than what I posted. And these guys
loved Eps 1 - 3, and felt my opinions were completely off base. It
seems like this movie was a huge misfire, not just from a filmmaking
standpoint (as I was reviewing it) but from a "hearts and minds" fan
standpoint. It's almost like people WANT this movie to get nailed.
[color=blue]
> Still, Wall-E saved the evening. One of the best movies I've seen in a
> long while.[/color]

Oh, I loved Wall-E. Isn't it interesting that the filmmakers who are
really grabbing audiences all cut their teeth outside the studio
system? Pixar was a maverick that successfully retained their
maverick status. Chistopher Nolan started with Momento. Peter
Jackson started in B movies. Sam Raimi started in B movies. The
people that learned how to entertain audiences because they had to,
because they couldn't fall back on fancy visuals and such because they
couldn't afford it, are the ones who are making the movies that stick
with you.
[color=blue]
> My partner works in a Sci-Fi shop and she's totally sick of Star Wars
> now. They have a billion new toys.[/color]

Maybe they should call it, "Star Wars - How To Lose A Fan In Ten
Films."

SpaceGirl <nothespacegirlspam@subhuman.net> wrote:[color=blue]
> Pete Holland Jr. wrote:[color=green][color=darkred]
>>> Why here at r.a.a.m.? Can't you find other places that are more
>>> appropriate?[/color]
>>
>> Well, I posted here because of the spillover. People here talk about
>> Star Wars, comic books, and animation in general. This movie hit two
>> of those points, so I figured it was safe, although I did add the OT
>> just as a precaution. I didn't think this was that far of a
>> digression.[/color]
>
> Well I liked the review :) thank for sharing, I wouldn't have caught
> it if you had posted it anywhere else.[/color]

There are tons of postings you might be interested in, but won't catch,
because you haven't subscribed to the groups they're posted in. So? That
doesn't mean it's appropriate to post any of that stuff here. This group
is for anime, i.e. animation of Japanese origin, and stuff related to
that.

Knowing that something is off-topic here (and admitting to the fact by
putting "OT" in the subject), but posting it nonetheless just makes you
a total jerk. Period. Even more if you have a history of doing so.

cu
59cobalt
--
"My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight
flaw in my character."
--Li Kao (Barry Hughart: Bridge of Birds)

Dave Baranyi wrote:[color=blue]
> "Pete Holland Jr." <peterg@uti.com> wrote in message
> news:929278e6-f0b4-4469-9055-e5ba05497a95@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>
> Pete -
>
> Why here at r.a.a.m.? Can't you find other places that are more appropriate?[/color]

Because he does. It's also animated, which makes it less OT. And I
enjoy reading his reviews.

[color=blue]
>
> (Too tired to attempt to create an on-topic thread.)
>[/color]

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: [url]http://seawasp.livejournal.com[/url]

Pete Holland Jr. wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
>> Well I liked the review :) thank for sharing, I wouldn't have caught it
>> if you had posted it anywhere else. I've read a few movie magazine
>> reviews that predictability drooled *sigh* but I suspected it was going
>> to be terrible. There was a trailer for it before Wall-E, which I
>> finally got to see last night. I actually *cringed* at the dialog. I'll
>> pretty much consume any movie, but I rarely think I trailer is so bad I
>> want to hide in my popcorn. It was on par with utterly awful trailer for
>> High School Musical 3.[/color]
>
> Thank you for the compliment. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
>
> The strange thing is, I've gotten a couple of e-mails from friends who
> say I didn't go far enough with the review. Considering the cheap
> shots I've taken at Episodes 1 through 3 over the years, they were
> expecting far more viciousness than what I posted. And these guys
> loved Eps 1 - 3, and felt my opinions were completely off base. It
> seems like this movie was a huge misfire, not just from a filmmaking
> standpoint (as I was reviewing it) but from a "hearts and minds" fan
> standpoint. It's almost like people WANT this movie to get nailed.[/color]

Well from me just... apathy. I don't really care any more... although I
like the Star Wars lego toys! :D
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Still, Wall-E saved the evening. One of the best movies I've seen in a
>> long while.[/color]
>
> Oh, I loved Wall-E. Isn't it interesting that the filmmakers who are
> really grabbing audiences all cut their teeth outside the studio
> system? Pixar was a maverick that successfully retained their
> maverick status. Chistopher Nolan started with Momento. Peter
> Jackson started in B movies. Sam Raimi started in B movies. The
> people that learned how to entertain audiences because they had to,
> because they couldn't fall back on fancy visuals and such because they
> couldn't afford it, are the ones who are making the movies that stick
> with you.[/color]

Yes, it's very interesting. There are just a few other directors I
really like; Ridley Scott, but only when he remembers he's a visionary,
not a studio-hired drone, Guillermo Del Toro who seems to make movies
stolen from my childhood nightmares and Terry Gilliam, who's imagination
outstrips any amount of money a studio is willing to cough up (and some
of the worst luck of any director on the planet).

I'm not sure I rate Sam Raimi any more; he had his moments, but the
Spiderman movies, IMO, utterly terrible. Especially the 3rd one, which
should have never been made.

Now to bring this back full circle; I'd love to see Scott direct say,
Battle Angel Alita (he was connected to that once), or could you imagine
a Del Toro Cowboy Bebop? Have Terry Gilliam's twisted mind make a live
action Perfect Blue or Serial Experiments Lain.
[color=blue]
>[color=green]
>> My partner works in a Sci-Fi shop and she's totally sick of Star Wars
>> now. They have a billion new toys.[/color]
>
> Maybe they should call it, "Star Wars - How To Lose A Fan In Ten
> Films."[/color]

:( I was so disappointed with the new trilogy of films. Of the 3, I
thought the 3rd was the best. All very nice for the kiddies, but no
lasting love like I have for the original trilogy (although I agree with
you comments regarding Jedi, that movie was fun, but it sucked).


--

x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

[url]http://www.northleithmill.com[/url]

-.-

Kammy has a new home: [url]http://www.bitesizedjapan.com[/url]

As usual, a well-written review.

I don't always agree with what you say (for instance, you, like many
deluded fans, put ESB above RotJ), but you write it well.

I really wanted to see this movie work. The Clone Wars animation series
had been head-and-shoulders above all Lucas' later work (although, alas,
inconsistent with the movies -- the Mace Windu of the series would've
totally SCHOOLED the Palpatine of RotS). Would've been nice if the movie
had matched that promise.

--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: [url]http://seawasp.livejournal.com[/url]